Cop-on-cop “investigations”:
They’re not even investigations
The nine-year Myles Gray outrage exposes a system
supported by B.C.’s NDP, Liberals/United, Greens,
Conservatives, BCCLA and Pivot—not to mention cops
October 12, 2024
Who’s “unsubstantiated” now?
“Unsubstantiated” is the most common excuse used to slap down concerns submitted to B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. But it’s now been revealed that the information submitted by cops to get those complaints dismissed is itself unsubstantiated. B.C.’s Police Act prevents the decision-making cop (the discipline authority) from challenging or otherwise trying to verify cops’ statements.
Up to now, critics of the bias inherent in having police investigate each other had assumed cops at least pretended to investigate, even if the cops were despicable liars. B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner routinely labels these procedures “investigations.” But it turns out they’re not. They pretty much amount to uncritical acceptance of info supplied by cops—unsubstantiated info. Yet it’s not the cops’ stories that get labelled “unsubstantiated.” Cops and the OPCC save that word for complaints made against cops.
Here are some excerpts from a report following a Police Act “investigation”1 into the Vancouver Police Department’s seven-cop Myles Gray death squad:
“Police Act discipline proceedings are entirely unlike trials or many administrative tribunal hearings. The evidence is almost totally a written record, and there is no cross-examination.
“While the respondent officers may challenge findings … the converse is not true: there is nobody there to challenge the officers’ evidence or submissions. It is a strangely lopsided process....
“With no testing of the evidence or arguments, with no counterweight, any Discipline Authority will be confined to the findings arising on the available evidence, which may be untested and might be incomplete.”
—Neil Dubord, the Delta police chief appointed as discipline authority
Apparently not mentioned, the same procedure applies to allegations of police sexual misconduct, including rape.
Dubord’s astonishingly frank admission, in a type of report normally kept secret due to another Police Act gift to police, was somehow obtained by Global News reporter Catherine Urquhart. She’s one of the tiny number of B.C. journalists to question police accountability over the approximately 17 years I’ve followed the subject. Other media picked up on her October 9 story, but with varying levels of awareness of Dubord’s bombshell, as well as with varying levels of journalistic competency (and grammar).
Why Dubord wrote with such candour makes an interesting question. But, coming from a cop especially, his statement presents a tremendous challenge to B.C.’s cop status quo. Notwithstanding ignorant, hypocritical remarks from every B.C. political party, that status quo is backed by every B.C. political party.
In August 2015, seven Vancouver police officers spent 10 minutes
beating Myles Gray to death. His injuries included bruises and lacerations
to the face, bruising within the muscles of the neck, numerous and
dense areas of bruising elsewhere, fracture of the right orbit, fracturing
of the right nasal bone, possible partial dislocation on both sides of the
jaw, bleeding within the subdural space over the brain, focally fractured
laryngeal skeleton with adjacent hemorrhage, fracturing of the inner rear
part of the right third rib with adjacent hemorrhage, fracture to the upper
sternum, and hemorrhage within both testes.
The VPD perps were Eric Birzneck, Derek Cain, Kory Folkestad,
Hardeep Sahota, Beau Spencer, Nick Thompson and Josh Wong,
all of whom continue to enjoy VPD job security nine years later.
No one in B.C.’s political, legal or “social justice” establishment
has any objection.
Social justice phony David Eby began his career as a fraudulent
activist on policing. To avoid angering B.C.’s political and legal elite,
he conspicuously avoided criticism of the police “accountability”
system that engenders such obvious cop-favourable corruption.
He continued that self-serving expediency while in elected office,
even as premier.
David Eby, NDP premier prior to the election campaign, has evaded Police Act issues since his earliest days as an SJW charlatan with the Pivot Legal Society and B.C. Civil Liberties Association. Posing as a critic of police misconduct, he initially addressed individual allegations of wrongdoing while avoiding the much more important topic of the secret, unaccountable Police Act system that allows cops to get away with so much. To do so would have jeopardized his ambitions with B.C.’s political and legal elite.
Eventually he became even more cautious. When reporters approached him on issues of police misconduct, Eby changed the subject to mental health care. After 11 years in elected office, two as premier, he’s done nothing to improve mental health care or police accountability.
Mike Farnworth has been a career-long cop stooge in the legislature,
on legislative committees, in opposition and in government, often
holding positions related to police accountability. As solicitor general
he’s stalled since 2019 on his false promise to overhaul B.C.’s Police Act.
Mike Farnworth, NDP solicitor general prior to the election campaign (that sneering, grimacing old relic’s running again?), feigned concern about Dubord’s statement. “The next stage of the police reform deals with accountability and these kinds of disciplinary situations and ensuring that they are fair for all parties involved,” Urquhart quoted him.
Too vague, too late and completely unconvincing.
Farnworth’s been vowing an overhaul of the Police Act since at least 2019. Since then he’s struck two all-party legislative committees that pretended to address the subject but made no recommendations on this particular issue—or, for that matter, on any other issue of importance, especially the OPCC’s lack of transparency and accountability. At any rate, Farnworth’s been a cop stooge throughout his overly long career.
While a B.C. Liberal, John Rustad joined Mike Farnworth and other MLAs
on remunerative legislative committees that thwarted police accountability.
Now B.C. Conservative leader, Rustad has never explained his astonishing
decision to help appoint Stan Lowe as police complaint commissioner.
When asked about Dubord’s statement, B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad said nothing of substance. This is the pay-perks-and-pension prat who took part in two legislative committees to uphold the cop status quo. In 2008 Rustad and Farnworth helped appoint Stan Lowe, Canada’s most outspoken supporter of gratuitous police violence, to the position of police complaint commissioner. Lowe went on to commit at least four cover-ups that accidentally came to light despite OPCC secrecy. In 2009 Rustad again joined Farnworth and other MLAs, this time to recommend a Police Act bill that only preserved a system allowing corruption.
Green MLA Adam Olsen served the cop status quo by selling his
indigenous imprimatur to Mike Farnworth’s cop-friendly agenda.
Green leader Sonia Furstenau calls Olsen one of B.C.’s
“greatest parliamentarians.”
Does Green leader Sonia Furstenau have anything to say? Most likely not. She’s called fellow MLA Adam Olsen “one of the greatest parliamentarians” of the last two legislative terms, adding “I have such love and admiration and respect for Adam.” Olsen acted as Farnworth’s hand puppet on three legislative committees that upheld the cop status quo. The indigenous sellout profited each time with a huge boost to his pay and perks.
Ian Donaldson, lawyer for the Gray family, offered some relatively mild criticism of the Police Act. But he can’t say much more without angering B.C.’s legal and political establishment. That’s an unwritten rule understood throughout Eby’s career as a Pivot/BCCLA fraud and NDP opportunist.
Clearly no one in B.C. politics wants real Police Act reform. Nor does anyone in the BCCLA and Pivot, the two poverty pimp hustles that media turn to for “critical” comment on the subject. Pivot even took part in the VPD/OPCC cover-up of constable Taylor Robinson’s inexplicable assault on a disabled native woman.
If any of that sounds like past history, keep in mind that the same circumstances prevail, allowing similar cover-ups with zero repercussions. Many of the same collaborators hold prominent positions, for example Eby, Farnworth, Rustad, Furstenau and the Pivot/BCCLA pimps.
An additional point: Even apart from their viciousness, there’s long been plenty of reason to dismiss the seven cops. They lack credibility on anything, and they can’t be trusted to handle confrontations.
B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office attempted to scrutinize them in a criminal investigation (not a Police Act “investigation”). But in December 2020 Crown prosecutors concluded that charges wouldn’t stick because, in lieu of independent witnesses and surveillance video, investigators had no way of determining what happened. All seven officers gave wildly divergent statements that prevented detailed understanding of the incident. (Not publicly reported is whether they revised their stories for the Police Act “investigation.”)
So their word can’t be trusted. That taints any evidence they handle, any statements they make, any testimony they give. And, of course, they’re obviously unsuited to handling confrontations. But all seven cops continue to hold secure VPD jobs.
Will anything change in the coming legislative session? Dubord’s bombshell should have demolished any confidence in B.C.’s Police Act. But more likely the effect will fizzle out. For that we can thank the combined efforts of B.C.’s ethically corrupt political and legal elite, collaborationist “activists” and courtier media, not to mention a powerful police lobby.
Meanwhile, the OPCC’s involvement continues. Urquhart’s story, a blue-moon event in B.C. journalism, makes a Stan Lowe-style cover-up all the less likely. We can expect commissioner Prabhu Rajan to order a public hearing.
It’s been nine years.
1The “investigation” was reportedly conducted by Richmond RCMP but headed by Metro Vancouver Transit Police chief David Jones. Acting as discipline authority under the Police Act was Delta police chief Neil Dubord, who wrote the report.
Related:
Myles Gray:
The coroner’s inquest changes nothing
B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth plans to evade
police accountability by manipulating identity politics
The Myles Gray decision
Vancouver police demonstrate the need for body cameras.
And seven more cops prove themselves unfit for duty
Read more about
B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner
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